On arriving in Petersburg, Vronsky and Anna stayed at one of thebest hotels; Vronsky apart in a lower story, Anna above withher child, its nurse, and her maid, in a large suite of fourrooms.

On the day of his arrival Vronsky went to his brother's. Therehe found his mother, who had come from Moscow on business. Hismother and sister-in-law greeted him as usual: they asked himabout his stay abroad, and talked of their common acquaintances,but did not let drop a single word in allusion to his connectionwith Anna. His brother came the next morning to see Vronsky, andof his own accord asked him about her, and Alexey Vronsky toldhim directly that he looked upon his connection with MadameKarenina as marriage; that he hoped to arrange a divorce, andthen to marry her, and until then he considered her as much awife as any other wife, and he begged him to tell their motherand his wife so.

"If the world disapproves, I don't care," said Vronsky; "but ifmy relations want to be on terms of relationship with me, theywill have to be on the same terms with my wife."

The elder brother, who had always a respect for his youngerbrother's judgment, could not well tell whether he was right ornot till the world had decided the question; for his part he hadnothing against it, and with Alexey he went up to see Anna.

Before his brother, as before everyone, Vronsky addressed Annawith a certain formality, treating her as he might a veryintimate friend, but it was understood that his brother knewtheir real relations, and they talked about Anna's going toVronsky's estate.

In spite of all his social experience Vronsky was, in consequenceof the new position in which he was placed, laboring under astrange misapprehension. One would have thought he must haveunderstood that society was closed for him and Anna; but now somevague ideas had sprung up in his brain that this was only thecase in old-fashioned days, and that now with the rapidity ofmodern progress (he had unconsciously become by now a partisan ofevery sort of progress) the views of society had changed, andthat the question whether they would be received in society wasnot a foregone conclusion. "Of course," he thought, "she wouldnot be received at court, but intimate friends can and must lookat it in the proper light." One may sit for several hours at astretch with one's legs crossed in the same position, if oneknows that there's nothing to prevent one's changing one'sposition; but if a man knows that he must remain sitting so withcrossed legs, then cramps come on, the legs begin to twitch andto strain towards the spot to which one would like to draw them.This was what Vronsky was experiencing in regard to the world.Though at the bottom of his heart he knew that the world was shuton them, he put it to the test whether the world had not changedby now and would not receive them. But he very quickly perceivedthat though the world was open for him personally, it was closedfor Anna. Just as in the game of cat and mouse, the hands raisedfor him were dropped to bar the way for Anna.

One of the first ladies of Petersburg society whom Vronsky sawwas his cousin Betsy.

"At last!" she greeted him joyfully. "And Anna? How glad I am!Where are you stopping? I can fancy after your delightfultravels you must find our poor Petersburg horrid. I can fancyyour honeymoon in Rome. How about the divorce? Is that allover?"

Vronsky noticed that Betsy's enthusiasm waned when she learnedthat no divorce had as yet taken place.

"People will throw stones at me, I know," she said, "but I shallcome and see Anna; yes, I shall certainly come. You won't behere long, I suppose?"

And she did certainly come to see Anna the same day, but her tonewas not at all the same as in former days. She unmistakablyprided herself on her courage, and wished Anna to appreciate thefidelity of her friendship. She only stayed ten minutes, talkingof society gossip, and on leaving she said:

"You've never told me when the divorce is to be? Supposing I'mready to fling my cap over the mill, other starchy people willgive you the cold shoulder until you're married. And that's sosimple nowadays. Ca se fait. So you're going on Friday? Sorrywe shan't see each other again."

From Betsy's tone Vronsky might have grasped what he had toexpect from the world; but he made another effort in his ownfamily. His mother he did not reckon upon. He knew that hismother, who had been so enthusiastic over Anna at their firstacquaintance, would have no mercy on her now for having ruinedher son's career. But he had more hope of Varya, his brother'swife. He fancied she would not throw stones, and would go simplyand directly to see Anna, and would receive her in her ownhouse.

The day after his arrival Vronsky went to her, and finding heralone, expressed his wishes directly.

"You know, Alexey," she said after hearing him, "how fond I am ofyou, and how ready I am to do anything for you; but I have notspoken, because I knew I could be of no use to you and to AnnaArkadyevna," she said, articulating the name "Anna Arkadyevna"with particular care. "Don't suppose, please, that I judge her.Never; perhaps in her place I should have done the same. I don'tand can't enter into that," she said, glancing timidly at hisgloomy face. "But one must call things by their names. You wantme to go and see her, to ask her here, and to rehabilitate her insociety; but do understand that I CANNOT do so. I have daughtersgrowing up, and I must live in the world for my husband's sake.Well, I'm ready to come and see Anna Arkadyevna: she willunderstand that I can't ask her here, or I should have to do soin such a way that she would not meet people who look at thingsdifferently; that would offend her. I can't raise her..."

"Oh, I don't regard her as fallen more than hundreds of women youdo receive!" Vronsky interrupted her still more gloomily, and hegot up in silence, understanding that his sister-in-law'sdecision was not to be shaken.

"Alexey! don't be angry with me. Please understand that I'm notto blame," began Varya, looking at him with a timid smile.

"I'm not angry with you," he said still as gloomily; "but I'msorry in two ways. I'm sorry, too, that this means breaking upour friendship--if not breaking up, at least weakening it. Youwill understand that for me, too, it cannot be otherwise."

And with that he left her.

Vronsky knew that further efforts were useless, and that he hadto spend these few days in Petersburg as though in a strangetown, avoiding every sort of relation with his own old circle inorder not to be exposed to the annoyances and humiliations whichwere so intolerable to him. One of the most unpleasant featuresof his position in Petersburg was that Alexey Alexandrovitch andhis name seemed to meet him everywhere. He could not begin totalk of anything without the conversation turning on AlexeyAlexandrovitch; he could not go anywhere without risk of meetinghim. So at least it seemed to Vronsky, just as it seems to a manwith a sore finger that he is continually, as though on purpose,grazing his sore finger on everything.

Their stay in Petersburg was the more painful to Vronsky that heperceived all the time a sort of new mood that he could notunderstand in Anna. At one time she would seem in love with him,and then she would become cold, irritable, and impenetrable. Shewas worrying over something, and keeping something back from him,and did not seem to notice the humiliations which poisoned hisexistence, and for her, with her delicate intuition, must havebeen still more unbearable.

Chapter 29

One of Anna's objects in coming back to Russia had been to seeher son. From the day she left Italy the thought of it had neverceased to agitate her. And as she got nearer to Petersburg, thedelight and importance of this meeting grew ever greater in herimagination. She did not even put to herself the question how toarrange it. It seemed to her natural and simple to see her sonwhen she should be in the same town with him. But on her arrivalin Petersburg she was suddenly made distinctly aware of herpresent position in society, and she grasped the fact that toarrange this meeting was no easy matter.

She had now been two days in Petersburg. The thought of her sonnever left her for a single instant, but she had not yet seenhim. To go straight to the house, where she might meet AlexeyAlexandrovitch, that she felt she had no right to do. She mightbe refused admittance and insulted. To write and so enter intorelations with her husband--that it made her miserable to thinkof doing; she could only be at peace when she did not think ofher husband. To get a glimpse of her son out walking, findingout where and when he went out, was not enough for her; she hadso looked forward to this meeting, she had so much she must sayto him, she so longed to embrace him, to kiss him. Seryozha'sold nurse might be a help to her and show her what to do. Butthe nurse was not now living in Alexey Alexandrovitch's house.In this uncertainty, and in efforts to find the nurse, two dayshad slipped by.

Hearing of the close intimacy between Alexey Alexandrovitch andCountess Lidia Ivanovna, Anna decided on the third day to writeto her a letter, which cost her great pains, and in which sheintentionally said that permission to see her son must depend onher husband's generosity. She knew that if the letter were shownto her husband, he would keep up his character of magnanimity,and would not refuse her request.

The commissionaire who took the letter had brought her back themost cruel and unexpected answer, that there was no answer. Shehad never felt so humiliated as at the moment when, sending forthe commissionaire, she heard from him the exact account of howhe had waited, and how afterwards he had been told there was noanswer. Anna felt humiliated, insulted, but she saw that fromher point of view Countess Lidia Ivanovna was right. Hersuffering was the more poignant that she had to bear it insolitude. She could not and would not share it with Vronsky.She knew that to him, although he was the primary cause of herdistress, the question of her seeing her son would seem a matterof very little consequence. She knew that he would never becapable of understanding all the depth of her suffering, that forhis cool tone at any allusion to it she would begin to hate him.And she dreaded that more than anything in the world, and so shehid from him everything that related to her son. Spending thewhole day at home she considered ways of seeing her son, and hadreached a decision to write to her husband. She was justcomposing this letter when she was handed the letter from LidiaIvanovna. The countess's silence had subdued and depressed her,but the letter, all that she read between the lines in it, soexasperated her, this malice was so revolting beside herpassionate, legitimate tenderness for her son, that she turnedagainst other people and left off blaming herself.

"This coldness--this pretense of feeling!" she said to herself."They must needs insult me and torture the child, and I am tosubmit to it! Not on any consideration! She is worse than I am.I don't lie, anyway." And she decided on the spot that next day,Seryozha's birthday, she would go straight to her husband'shouse, bribe or deceive the servants, but at any cost see her sonand overturn the hideous deception with which they wereencompassing the unhappy child.

She went to a toy shop, bought toys and thought over a plan ofaction. She would go early in the morning at eight o'clock, whenAlexey Alexandrovitch would be certain not to be up. She wouldhave money in her hand to give the hall porter and the footman,so that they should let her in, and not raising her veil, shewould say that she had come from Seryozha's godfather tocongratulate him, and that she had been charged to leave the toysat his bedside. She had prepared everything but the words sheshould say to her son. Often as she had dreamed of it, she couldnever think of anything.

The next day, at eight o'clock in the morning, Anna got out of ahired sledge and rang at the front entrance of her former home.

"Run and see what's wanted. Some lady," said Kapitonitch, who,not yet dressed, in his overcoat and galoshes, had peeped out ofthe window and seen a lady in a veil standing close up to thedoor. His assistant, a lad Anna did not know, had no sooneropened the door to her than she came in, and pulling athree-rouble note out of her muff put it hurriedly into his hand.

"Seryozha--Sergey Alexeitch," she said, and was going on.Scrutinizing the note, the porter's assistant stopped her at thesecond glass door.

"Whom do you want?" he asked.

She did not hear his words and made no answer.

Noticing the embarrassment of the unknown lady, Kapitonitch wentout to her, opened the second door for her, and asked her whatshe was pleased to want.

"From Prince Skorodumov for Sergey Alexeitch," she said.

"His honor's not up yet," said the porter, looking at herattentively.

Anna had not anticipated that the absolutely unchanged hall ofthe house where she had lived for nine years would so greatlyaffect her. Memories sweet and painful rose one after another inher heart, and for a moment she forgot what she was here for.

"Would you kindly wait?" said Kapitonitch, taking off her furcloak.

As he took off the cloak, Kapitonitch glanced at her face,recognized her, and made her a low bow in silence.

"Please walk in, your excellency," he said to her.

She tried to say something, but her voice refused to utter anysound; with a guilty and imploring glance at the old man she wentwith light, swift steps up the stairs. Bent double, and hisgaloshes catching in the steps, Kapitonitch ran after her, tryingto overtake her.

"The tutor's there; maybe he's not dressed. I'll let him know."

Anna still mounted the familiar staircase, not understanding whatthe old man was saying.

"This way, to the left, if you please. Excuse its not beingtidy. His honor's in the old parlor now," the hall porter said,panting. "Excuse me, wait a little, your excellency; I'll justsee," he said, and overtaking her, he opened the high door anddisappeared behind it. Anna stood still waiting. "He's onlyjust awake," said the hall porter, coming out. And at the veryinstant the porter said this, Anna caught the sound of a childishyawn. From the sound of this yawn alone she knew her son andseemed to see him living before her eyes.

"Let me in; go away!" she said, and went in through the highdoorway. On the right of the door stood a bed, and sitting up inthe bed was the boy. His little body bent forward with hisnightshirt unbuttoned, he was stretching and still yawning. Theinstant his lips came together they curved into a blissfullysleepy smile, and with that smile he slowly and deliciouslyrolled back again.

"Seryozha!" she whispered, going noiselessly up to him.

When she was parted from him, and all this latter time when shehad been feeling a fresh rush of love for him, she had picturedhim as he was at four years old, when she had loved him most ofall. Now he was not even the same as when she had left him; hewas still further from the four-year-old baby, more grown andthinner. How thin his face was, how short his hair was! Whatlong hands! How he had changed since she left him! But it washe with his head, his lips, his soft neck and broad littleshoulders.

"Seryozha!" she repeated just in the child's ear.

He raised himself again on his elbow, turned his tangled headfrom side to side as though looking for something, and opened hiseyes. Slowly and inquiringly he looked for several seconds athis mother standing motionless before him, then all at once hesmiled a blissful smile, and shutting his eyes, rolled notbackwards but towards her into her arms.

"Seryozha! my darling boy!" she said, breathing hard and puttingher arms round his plump little body. "Mother!" he said,wriggling about in her arms so as to touch her hands withdifferent parts of him.

Smiling sleepily still with closed eyes, he flung fat little armsround her shoulders, rolled towards her, with the delicioussleepy warmth and fragrance that is only found in children, andbegan rubbing his face against her neck and shoulders.

Anna looked at him hungrily; she saw how he had grown and changedin her absence. She knew, and did not know, the bare legs solong now, that were thrust out below the quilt, thoseshort-cropped curls on his neck in which she had so often kissedhim. She touched all this and could say nothing; tears chokedher.

"What are you crying for, mother?" he said, waking completely up."Mother, what are you crying for?" he cried in a tearful voice.

"I won't cry...I'm crying for joy. It's so long since I've seenyou. I won't, I won't," she said, gulping down her tears andturning away. "Come, it's time for you to dress now," she added,after a pause, and, never letting go his hands, she sat down byhis bedside on the chair, where his clothes were put ready forhim.

"How do you dress without me? How..." she tried to begin talkingsimply and cheerfully, but she could not, and again she turnedaway.

And Seryozha went off into a peal of laughter. She looked at himand smiled.

"Mother, darling, sweet one!" he shouted, flinging himself on heragain and hugging her. It was as though only now, on seeing hersmile, he fully grasped what had happened.

"I don't want that on," he said, taking off her hat. And as itwere, seeing her afresh without her hat, he fell to kissing heragain.

"But what did you think about me? You didn't think I was dead?"

"I never believed it."

"You didn't believe it, my sweet?"

"I knew, I knew!" he repeated his favorite phrase, and snatchingthe hand that was stroking his hair, he pressed the open palm tohis mouth and kissed it.

Chapter 30

Meanwhile Vassily Lukitch had not at first understood who thislady was, and had learned from their conversation that it was noother person than the mother who had left her husband, and whomhe had not seen, as he had entered the house after her departure.He was in doubt whether to go in or not, or whether tocommunicate with Alexey Alexandrovitch. Reflecting finally thathis duty was to get Seryozha up at the hour fixed, and that itwas therefore not his business to consider who was there, themother or anyone else, but simply to do his duty, he finisheddressing, went to the door and opened it.

But the embraces of the mother and child, the sound of theirvoices, and what they were saying, made him change his mind.

He shook his head, and with a sigh he closed the door. "I'llwait another ten minutes," he said to himself, clearing histhroat and wiping away tears.

Among the servants of the household there was intense excitementall this time. All had heard that their mistress had come, andthat Kapitonitch had let her in, and that she was even now in thenursery, and that their master always went in person to thenursery at nine o'clock, and every one fully comprehended that itwas impossible for the husband and wife to meet, and that theymust prevent it. Korney, the valet, going down to thehall porter's room, asked who had let her in, and how it was hehad done so, and ascertaining that Kapitonitch had admitted herand shown her up, he gave the old man a talking-to. Thehall porter was doggedly silent, but when Korney told him heought to be sent away, Kapitonitch darted up to him, and wavinghis hands in Korney's face, began:

"Oh yes, to be sure you'd not have let her in! After ten years'service, and never a word but of kindness, and there you'd up andsay, 'Be off, go along, get away with you!' Oh yes, you're ashrewd one at politics, I dare say! You don't need to be taughthow to swindle the master, and to filch fur coats!"

"Soldier!" said Korney contemptuously, and he turned to the nursewho was coming in. "Here, what do you think, Marya Efimovna: helet her in without a word to anyone," Korney said addressingher. "Alexey Alexandrovitch will be down immediately--and gointo the nursery!"

"A pretty business, a pretty business!" said the nurse. "You,Korney Vassilievitch, you'd best keep him some way or other, themaster, while I'll run and get her away somehow. A prettybusiness!"

When the nurse went into the nursery, Seryozha was telling hismother how he and Nadinka had had a fall in sledging downhill,and had turned over three times. She was listening to the soundof his voice, watching his face and the play of expression on it,touching his hand, but she did not follow what he was saying.She must go, she must leave him,--this was the only thing she wasthinking and feeling. She heard the steps of Vassily Lukitchcoming up to the door and coughing; she heard, too, the steps ofthe nurse as she came near; but she sat like one turned to stone,incapable of beginning to speak or to get up.

"Mistress, darling!" began the nurse, going up to Anna andkissing her hands and shoulders. "God has brought joy indeed toour boy on his birthday. You aren't changed one bit."

"Oh, nurse dear, I didn't know you were in the house," said Anna,rousing herself for a moment.

"I'm not living here, I'm living with my daughter. I came forthe birthday, Anna Arkadyevna, darling!"

The nurse suddenly burst into tears, and began kissing her handagain.

Seryozha, with radiant eyes and smiles, holding his mother by onehand and his nurse by the other, pattered on the rug with his fatlittle bare feet. The tenderness shown by his beloved nurse tohis mother threw him into an ecstasy.

"Mother! She often comes to see me, and when she comes..." hewas beginning, but he stopped, noticing that the nurse was sayingsomething in a whisper to his mother, and that in his mother'sface there was a look of dread and something like shame, whichwas so strangely unbecoming to her.

She went up to him.

"My sweet!" she said.

She could not say good-bye, but the expression on her face saidit, and he understood. "Darling, darling Kootik!" she used thename by which she had called him when he was little, "you won'tforget me? You..." but she could not say more.

How often afterwards she thought of words she might have said.But now she did not know how to say it, and could say nothing.But Seryozha knew all she wanted to say to him. He understoodthat she was unhappy and loved him. He understood even what thenurse had whispered. He had caught the words "always at nineo'clock," and he knew that this was said of his father, and thathis father and mother could not meet. That he understood, butone thing he could not understand--why there should be a look ofdread and shame in her face?... She was not in fault, but shewas afraid of him and ashamed of something. He would have likedto put a question that would have set at rest this doubt, but hedid not dare; he saw that she was miserable, and he felt for her.Silently he pressed close to her and whispered, "Don't go yet.He won't come just yet."

The mother held him away from her to see what he was thinking,what to say to him, and in his frightened face she read not onlythat he was speaking of his father, but, as it were, asking herwhat he ought to think about his father.

"Seryozha, my darling," she said, "love him; he's better andkinder than I am, and I have done him wrong. When you grow upyou will judge."

"There's no one better than you!..." he cried in despair throughhis tears, and, clutching her by the shoulders, he begansqueezing her with all his force to him, his arms trembling withthe strain.

"My sweet, my little one!" said Anna, and she cried as weakly andchildishly as he.

At that moment the door opened. Vassily Lukitch came in.

At the other door there was the sound of steps, and the nurse ina scared whisper said, "He's coming," and gave Anna her hat.

Seryozha sank onto the bed and sobbed, hiding his face in hishands. Anna removed his hands, once more kissed his wet face,and with rapid steps went to the door. Alexey Alexandrovitchwalked in, meeting her. Seeing her, he stopped short and bowedhis head.

Although she had just said he was better and kinder than she, inthe rapid glance she flung at him, taking in his whole figure inall its details, feelings of repulsion and hatred for him andjealousy over her son took possession of her. With a swiftgesture she put down her veil, and, quickening her pace, almostran out of the room.

She had not time to undo, and so carried back with her, theparcel of toys she had chosen the day before in a toy shop withsuch love and sorrow.

Chapter 31

As intensely as Anna had longed to see her son, and long as shehad been thinking of it and preparing herself for it, she hadnot in the least expected that seeing him would affect her sodeeply. On getting back to her lonely rooms in the hotel shecould not for a long while understand why she was there. "Yes,it's all over, and I am again alone," she said to herself, andwithout taking off her hat she sat down in a low chair by thehearth. Fixing her eyes on a bronze clock standing on a tablebetween the windows, she tried to think.

The French maid brought from abroad came in to suggest she shoulddress. She gazed at her wonderingly and said, "Presently." Afootman offered her coffee. "Later on," she said.

The Italian nurse, after having taken the baby out in her best,came in with her, and brought her to Anna. The plump, well-fedlittle baby, on seeing her mother, as she always did, held outher fat little hands, and with a smile on her toothless mouth,began, like a fish with a float, bobbing her fingers up and downthe starched folds of her embroidered skirt, making them rustle.It was impossible not to smile, not to kiss the baby, impossiblenot to hold out a finger for her to clutch, crowing and prancingall over; impossible not to offer her a lip which she sucked intoher little mouth by way of a kiss. And all this Anna did, andtook her in her arms and made her dance, and kissed her freshlittle cheek and bare little elbows; but at the sight of thischild it was plainer than ever to her that the feeling she hadfor her could not be called love in comparison with what she feltfor Seryozha. Everything in this baby was charming, but for somereason all this did not go deep to her heart. On her firstchild, though the child of an unloved father, had beenconcentrated all the love that had never found satisfaction. Herbaby girl had been born in the most painful circumstances and hadnot had a hundredth part of the care and thought which had been

concentrated on her first child. Besides, in the little girleverything was still in the future, while Seryozha was by nowalmost a personality, and a personality dearly loved. In himthere was a conflict of thought and feeling; he understood her,he loved her, he judged her, she thought, recalling his words andhis eyes. And she was forever--not physically only butspiritually--divided from him, and it was impossible to set thisright.

She gave the baby back to the nurse, let her go, and opened thelocket in which there was Seryozha's portrait when he was almostof the same age as the girl. She got up, and, taking off herhat, took up from a little table an album in which there werephotographs of her son at different ages. She wanted to comparethem, and began taking them out of the album. She took them allout except one, the latest and best photograph. In it he was ina white smock, sitting astride a chair, with frowning eyes andsmiling lips. It was his best, most characteristic expression.With her little supple hands, her white, delicate fingers, thatmoved with a peculiar intensity today, she pulled at a corner ofthe photograph, but the photograph had caught somewhere, and shecould not get it out. There was no paper knife on the table, andso, pulling out the photograph that was next to her son's (it wasa photograph of Vronsky taken at Rome in a round hat and withlong hair), she used it to push out her son's photograph. "Oh,here is he!" she said, glancing at the portrait of Vronsky, andshe suddenly recalled that he was the cause of her presentmisery. She had not once thought of him all the morning. Butnow, coming all at once upon that manly, noble face, so familiarand so dear to her, she felt a sudden rush of love for him.

"But where is he? How is it he leaves me alone in my misery?"she thought all at once with a feeling of reproach, forgettingshe had herself kept from him everything concerning her son. Shesent to ask him to come to her immediately; with a throbbingheart she awaited him, rehearsing to herself the words in whichshe would tell him all, and the expressions of love with which hewould console her. The messenger returned with the answer thathe had a visitor with him, but that he would come immediately,and that he asked whether she would let him bring with him PrinceYashvin, who had just arrived in Petersburg. "He's not comingalone, and since dinner yesterday he has not seen me," shethought; "he's not coming so that I could tell him everything,but coming with Yashvin." And all at once a strange idea came toher: what if he had ceased to love her?

And going over the events of the last few days, it seemed to herthat she saw in everything a confirmation of this terrible idea.The fact that he had not dined at home yesterday, and the factthat he had insisted on their taking separate sets of rooms inPetersburg, and that even now he was not coming to her alone, asthough he were trying to avoid meeting her face to face.

"But he ought to tell me so. I must know that it is so. If Iknew it, then I know what I should do," she said to herself,utterly unable to picture to herself the position she would be inif she were convinced of his not caring for her. She thought hehad ceased to love her, she felt close upon despair, andconsequently she felt exceptionally alert. She rang for her maidand went to her dressing room. As she dressed, she took morecare over her appearance than she had done all those days, asthough he might, if he had grown cold to her, fall in love withher again because she had dressed and arranged her hair in theway most becoming to her.

She heard the bell ring before she was ready. When she went intothe drawing room it was not he, but Yashvin, who met her eyes.Vronsky was looking through the photographs of her son, which shehad forgotten on the table, and he made no haste to look round ather.

"We have met already," she said, putting her little hand into thehuge hand of Yashvin, whose bashfulness was so queerly out ofkeeping with his immense frame and coarse face. "We met lastyear at the races. Give them to me," she said, with a rapidmovement snatching from Vronsky the photographs of her son, andglancing significantly at him with flashing eyes. "Were theraces good this year? Instead of them I saw the races in theCorso in Rome. But you don't care for life abroad," she saidwith a cordial smile. "I know you and all your tastes, though Ihave seen so little of you."

"I'm awfully sorry for that, for my tastes are mostly bad," saidYashvin, gnawing at his left mustache.

Having talked a little while, and noticing that Vronsky glancedat the clock, Yashvin asked her whether she would be staying muchlonger in Petersburg, and unbending his huge figure reached afterhis cap.

"Not long, I think," she said hesitatingly, glancing at Vronsky.

"So then we shan't meet again?"

"Come and dine with me," said Anna resolutely, angry it seemedwith herself for her embarrassment, but flushing as she alwaysdid when she defined her position before a fresh person. "Thedinner here is not good, but at least you will see him. There isno one of his old friends in the regiment Alexey cares for as hedoes for you."

"Delighted," said Yashvin with a smile, from which Vronsky couldsee that he liked Anna very much.

Yashvin said good-bye and went away; Vronsky stayed behind.

"Are you going too?" she said to him.

"I'm late already," he answered. "Run along! I'll catch you upin a moment," he called to Yashvin.

She took him by the hand, and without taking her eyes off him,gazed at him while she ransacked her mind for the words to saythat would keep him.

"Wait a minute, there's something I want to say to you," andtaking his broad hand she pressed it on her neck. "Oh, was itright my asking him to dinner?"

"You did quite right," he said with a serene smile that showedhis even teeth, and he kissed her hand.

"Alexey, you have not changed to me?" she said, pressing his handin both of hers. "Alexey, I am miserable here. When are wegoing away?"

"Soon, soon. You wouldn't believe how disagreeable our way ofliving here is to me too," he said, and he drew away his hand.

"Well, go, go!" she said in a tone of offense, and she walkedquickly away from him.

Chapter 32

When Vronsky returned home, Anna was not yet home. Soon after hehad left, some lady, so they told him, had come to see her, andshe had gone out with her. That she had gone out without leavingword where she was going, that she had not yet come back, andthat all the morning she had been going about somewhere without aword to him--all this, together with the strange look ofexcitement in her face in the morning, and the recollection ofthe hostile tone with which she had before Yashvin almostsnatched her son's photographs out of his hands, made himserious. He decided he absolutely must speak openly with her.And he waited for her in her drawing room. But Anna did notreturn alone, but brought with her her old unmarried aunt,Princess Oblonskaya. This was the lady who had come in themorning, and with whom Anna had gone out shopping. Anna appearednot to notice Vronsky's worried and inquiring expression, andbegan a lively account of her morning's shopping. He saw thatthere was something working within her; in her flashing eyes,when they rested for a moment on him, there was an intenseconcentration, and in her words and movements there was thatnervous rapidity and grace which, during the early period oftheir intimacy, had so fascinated him, but which now so disturbedand alarmed him.

The dinner was laid for four. All were gathered together andabout to go into the little dining room when Tushkevitch made hisappearance with a message from Princess Betsy. Princess Betsybegged her to excuse her not having come to say good-bye; she hadbeen indisposed, but begged Anna to come to her between half-pastsix and nine o'clock. Vronsky glanced at Anna at the preciselimit of time, so suggestive of steps having been taken that sheshould meet no one; but Anna appeared not to notice it.

"Very sorry that I can't come just between half-past six andnine," she said with a faint smile.

"The princess will be very sorry."

"And so am I."

"You're going, no doubt, to hear Patti?" said Tushkevitch.

"Patti? You suggest the idea to me. I would go if it werepossible to get a box."

"I can get one," Tushkevitch offered his services.

"I should be very, very grateful to you," said Anna. "But won'tyou dine with us?"

Vronsky gave a hardly perceptible shrug. He was at a completeloss to understand what Anna was about. What had she brought theold Princess Oblonskaya home for, what had she made Tushkevitchstay to dinner for, and, most amazing of all, why was she sendinghim for a box? Could she possibly think in her position of goingto Patti's benefit, where all the circle of her acquaintanceswould be? He looked at her with serious eyes, but she respondedwith that defiant, half-mirthful, half-desperate look, themeaning of which he could not comprehend. At dinner Anna was inaggressively high spirits--she almost flirted both withTushkevitch and with Yashvin. When they got up from dinner andTushkevitch had gone to get a box at the opera, Yashvin went tosmoke, and Vronsky went down with him to his own rooms. Aftersitting there for some time he ran upstairs. Anna was alreadydressed in a low-necked gown of light silk and velvet that shehad had made in Paris, and with costly white lace on her head,framing her face, and particularly becoming, showing up herdazzling beauty.

"Are you really going to the theater?" he said, trying not tolook at her.

"Why do you ask with such alarm?" she said, wounded again at hisnot looking at her. "Why shouldn't I go?"

She appeared not to understand the motive of his words.

"Oh, of course, there's no reason whatever," he said, frowning.

"That's just what I say," she said, willfully refusing to see theirony of his tone, and quietly turning back her long, perfumedglove.

"Anna, for God's sake! what is the matter with you?" he said,appealing to her exactly as once her husband had done.

"I don't understand what you are asking."

"You know that it's out of the question to go."

"Why so? I'm not going alone. Princess Varvara has gone todress, she is going with me."

He shrugged his shoulders with an air of perplexity and despair.

"But do you mean to say you don't know?..." he began.

"But I don't care to know!" she almost shrieked. "I don't careto. Do I regret what I have done? No, no, no! If it were allto do again from the beginning, it would be the same. For us,for you and for me, there is only one thing that matters, whetherwe love each other. Other people we need not consider. Why arewe living here apart and not seeing each other? Why can't I go?I love you, and I don't care for anything," she said in Russian,glancing at him with a peculiar gleam in her eyes that he couldnot understand. "If you have not changed to me, why don't youlook at me?"

He looked at her. He saw all the beauty of her face and fulldress, always so becoming to her. But now her beauty andelegance were just what irritated him.

"My feeling cannot change, you know, but I beg you, I entreatyou," he said again in French, with a note of tender supplicationin his voice, but with coldness in his eyes.

She did not hear his words, but she saw the coldness of his eyes,and answered with irritation:

Vronsky for the first time experienced a feeling of anger againstAnna, almost a hatred for her willfully refusing to understandher own position. This feeling was aggravated by his beingunable to tell her plainly the cause of his anger. If he hadtold her directly what he was thinking, he would have said:

"In that dress, with a princess only too well known to everyone,to show yourself at the theater is equivalent not merely toacknowledging your position as a fallen woman, but is flingingdown a challenge to society, that is to say, cutting yourself offfrom it forever."

He could not say that to her. "But how can she fail to see it,and what is going on in her?" he said to himself. He felt at thesame time that his respect for her was diminished while his senseof her beauty was intensified.

He went back scowling to his rooms, and sitting down besideYashvin, who, with his long legs stretched out on a chair, wasdrinking brandy and seltzer water, he ordered a glass of the samefor himself.

"You were talking of Lankovsky's Powerful. That's a fine horse,and I would advise you to buy him," said Yashvin, glancing athis comrade's gloomy face. "His hind-quarters aren't quitefirst-rate, but the legs and head--one couldn't wish for anythingbetter."

"I think I will take him," answered Vronsky.

Their conversation about horses interested him, but he did notfor an instant forget Anna, and could not help listening to thesound of steps in the corridor and looking at the clock on thechimney piece.

"Anna Arkadyevna gave orders to announce that she has gone to thetheater."

Yashvin, tipping another glass of brandy into the bubbling water,drank it and got up, buttoning his coat.

"Well, let's go," he said, faintly smiling under his mustache,and showing by this smile that he knew the cause of Vronsky'sgloominess, and did not attach any significance to it.

"I'm not going," Vronsky answered gloomily.

"Well, I must, I promised to. Good-bye, then. If you do, cometo the stalls; you can take Kruzin's stall," added Yashvin as hewent out.

"No, I'm busy."

"A wife is a care, but it's worse when she's not a wife," thoughtYashvin, as he walked out of the hotel.

Vronsky, left alone, got up from his chair and began pacing upand down the room.

"And what's today? The fourth night.... Yegor and his wife arethere, and my mother, most likely. Of course all Petersburg'sthere. Now she's gone in, taken off her cloak and come into thelight. Tushkevitch, Yashvin, Princess Varvara," he pictured themto himself.... "What about me? Either that I'm frightened orhave given up to Tushkevitch the right to protect her? Fromevery point of view--stupid, stupid!... And why is she puttingme in such a position?" he said with a gesture of despair.

With that gesture he knocked against the table, on which therewas standing the seltzer water and the decanter of brandy, andalmost upset it. He tried to catch it, let it slip, and angrilykicked the table over and rang.

"If you care to be in my service," he said to the valet who camein, "you had better remember your duties. This shouldn't behere. You ought to have cleared away."

The valet, conscious of his own innocence, would have defendedhimself, but glancing at his master, he saw from his face thatthe only thing to do was to be silent, and hurriedly threadinghis way in and out, dropped down on the carpet and begangathering up the whole and broken glasses and bottles.

"That's not your duty; send the waiter to clear away, and get mydress coat out."

Vronsky went into the theater at half-past eight. Theperformance was in full swing. The little old box-keeper,recognizing Vronsky as he helped him off with his fur coat,called him "Your Excellency," and suggested he should not take anumber but should simply call Fyodor. In the brightly lightedcorridor there was no one but the box-opener and two attendantswith fur cloaks on their arms listening at the doors. Throughthe closed doors came the sounds of the discreet staccatoaccompaniment of the orchestra, and a single female voicerendering distinctly a musical phrase. The door opened to letthe box-opener slip through, and the phrase drawing to the endreached Vronsky's hearing clearly. But the doors were closedagain at once, and Vronsky did not hear the end of the phrase andthe cadence of the accompaniment, though he knew from the thunderof applause that it was over. When he entered the hall,brilliantly lighted with chandeliers and gas jets, the noise wasstill going on. On the stage the singer, bowing and smiling,with bare shoulders flashing with diamonds, was, with the help ofthe tenor who had given her his arm, gathering up the bouquetsthat were flying awkwardly over the footlights. Then she went upto a gentleman with glossy pomaded hair parted down the center,who was stretching across the footlights holding out something toher, and all the public in the stalls as well as in the boxes wasin excitement, craning forward, shouting and clapping. Theconductor in his high chair assisted in passing the offering, andstraightened his white tie. Vronsky walked into the middle ofthe stalls, and, standing still, began looking about him. Thatday less than ever was his attention turned upon the familiar,habitual surroundings, the stage, the noise, all the familiar,uninteresting, particolored herd of spectators in the packedtheater.

There were, as always, the same ladies of some sort with officersof some sort in the back of the boxes; the same gaily dressedwomen--God knows who--and uniforms and black coats; the samedirty crowd in the upper gallery; and among the crowd, in theboxes and in the front rows, were some forty of the REAL people.And to those oases Vronsky at once directed his attention, andwith them he entered at once into relation.

The act was over when he went in, and so he did not go straightto his brother's box, but going up to the first row of stallsstopped at the footlights with Serpuhovskoy, who, standing withone knee raised and his heel on the footlights, caught sight ofhim in the distance and beckoned to him, smiling.

Vronsky had not yet seen Anna. He purposely avoided looking inher direction. But he knew by the direction of people's eyeswhere she was. He looked round discreetly, but he was notseeking her; expecting the worst, his eyes sought for AlexeyAlexandrovitch. To his relief Alexey Alexandrovitch was not inthe theater that evening.

"How little of the military man there is left in you!"Serpuhovskoy was saying to him. "A diplomat, an artist,something of that sort, one would say."

"Yes, it was like going back home when I put on a black coat,"answered Vronsky, smiling and slowly taking out his opera glass.

"Well, I'll own I envy you there. When I come back from abroadand put on this," he touched his epaulets, "I regret myfreedom."

Serpuhovskoy had long given up all hope of Vronsky's career, buthe liked him as before, and was now particularly cordial to him.

"What a pity you were not in time for the first act!"

Vronsky, listening with one ear, moved his opera glass from thestalls and scanned the boxes. Near a lady in a turban and a baldold man, who seemed to wave angrily in the moving opera glass,Vronsky suddenly caught sight of Anna's head, proud, strikinglybeautiful, and smiling in the frame of lace. She was in thefifth box, twenty paces from him. She was sitting in front, andslightly turning, was saying something to Yashvin. The settingof her head on her handsome, broad shoulders, and the restrainedexcitement and brilliance of her eyes and her whole face remindedhim of her just as he had seen her at the ball in Moscow. But hefelt utterly different towards her beauty now. In his feelingfor her now there was no element of mystery, and so her beauty,though it attracted him even more intensely than before, gave himnow a sense of injury. She was not looking in his direction, butVronsky felt that she had seen him already.

When Vronsky turned the opera glass again in that direction, henoticed that Princess Varvara was particularly red, and keptlaughing unnaturally and looking round at the next box. Anna,folding her fan and tapping it on the red velvet, was gazing awayand did not see, and obviously did not wish to see, what wastaking place in the next box. Yashvin's face wore the expressionwhich was common when he was losing at cards. Scowling, hesucked the left end of his mustache further and further into hismouth, and cast sidelong glances at the next box.

In that box on the left were the Kartasovs. Vronsky knew them,and knew that Anna was acquainted with them. Madame Kartasova, athin little woman, was standing up in her box, and, her backturned upon Anna, she was putting on a mantle that her husbandwas holding for her. Her face was pale and angry, and she wastalking excitedly. Kartasov, a fat, bald man, was continuallylooking round at Anna, while he attempted to soothe his wife.When the wife had gone out, the husband lingered a long while,and tried to catch Anna's eye, obviously anxious to bow to her.But Anna, with unmistakable intention, avoided noticing him, andtalked to Yashvin, whose cropped head was bent down to her.Kartasov went out without making his salutation, and the box wasleft empty.

Vronsky could not understand exactly what had passed between theKartasovs and Anna, but he saw that something humiliating forAnna had happened. He knew this both from what he had seen, andmost of all from the face of Anna, who, he could see, was taxingevery nerve to carry through the part she had taken up. And inmaintaining this attitude of external composure she wascompletely successful. Anyone who did not know her and hercircle, who had not heard all the utterances of the womenexpressive of commiseration, indignation, and amazement, that sheshould show herself in society, and show herself so conspicuouslywith her lace and her beauty, would have admired the serenity andloveliness of this woman without a suspicion that she wasundergoing the sensations of a man in the stocks.

Knowing that something had happened, but not knowing preciselywhat, Vronsky felt a thrill of agonizing anxiety, and hoping tofind out something, he went towards his brother's box. Purposelychoosing the way round furthest from Anna's box, he jostled as hecame out against the colonel of his old regiment talking to twoacquaintances. Vronsky heard the name of Madame Karenina, andnoticed how the colonel hastened to address Vronsky loudly byname, with a meaning glance at his companions.

"Ah, Vronsky! When are you coming to the regiment? We can't letyou off without a supper. You're one of the old set," said thecolonel of his regiment.

The old countess, Vronsky's mother, with her steel-gray curls,was in his brother's box. Varya with the young Princess Sorokinamet him in the corridor.

Leaving the Princess Sorokina with her mother, Varya held out herhand to her brother-in-law, and began immediately to speak ofwhat interested him. She was more excited than he had ever seenher.

"I think it's mean and hateful, and Madame Kartasova had noright to do it. Madame Karenina..." she began.

"But what is it? I don't know."

"What? you've not heard?"

"You know I should be the last person to hear of it."

"There isn't a more spiteful creature than that MadameKartasova!"

"But what did she do?"

"My husband told me.... She has insulted Madame Karenina. Herhusband began talking to her across the box, and Madame Kartasovamade a scene. She said something aloud, he says, somethinginsulting, and went away."

"Count, your maman is asking for you," said the young PrincessSorokina, peeping out of the door of the box.

"I've been expecting you all the while," said his mother, smilingsarcastically. "You were nowhere to be seen."

Vronsky did not hear him. With rapid steps he went downstairs;he felt that he must do something, but he did not know what.Anger with her for having put herself and him in such a falseposition, together with pity for her suffering, filled his heart.He went down, and made straight for Anna's box. At her box stoodStremov, talking to her.

"There are no more tenors. Le moule en est brise!"

Vronsky bowed to her and stopped to greet Stremov.

"You came in late, I think, and have missed the best song," Annasaid to Vronsky, glancing ironically, he thought, at him.

"Thank you," she said, her little hand in its long glove takingthe playbill Vronsky picked up, and suddenly at that instant herlovely face quivered. She got up and went into the interior ofthe box.

Noticing in the next act that her box was empty, Vronsky, rousingindignant "hushes" in the silent audience, went out in the middleof a solo and drove home.

Anna was already at home. When Vronsky went up to her, she wasin the same dress as she had worn at the theater. She wassitting in the first armchair against the wall, looking straightbefore her. She looked at him, and at once resumed her formerposition.

"Anna," he said.

"You, you are to blame for everything!" she cried, with tears ofdespair and hatred in her voice, getting up.

"I begged, I implored you not to go, I knew it would beunpleasant...."

"Unpleasant!" she cried--"hideous! As long as I live I shallnever forget it. She said it was a disgrace to sit beside me."

"A silly woman's chatter," he said: "but why risk it, whyprovoke?..."

"I hate your calm. You ought not to have brought me to this. Ifyou had loved me..."

"Anna! How does the question of my love come in?"

"Oh, if you loved me, as I love, if you were tortured as Iam!..." she said, looking at him with an expression of terror.

He was sorry for her, and angry notwithstanding. He assured herof his love because he saw that this was the only means ofsoothing her, and he did not reproach her in words, but in hisheart he reproached her.

And the asseverations of his love, which seemed to him so vulgarthat he was ashamed to utter them, she drank in eagerly, andgradually became calmer. The next day, completely reconciled,they left for the country.

PART 6

Chapter 1

Darya Alexandrovna spent the summer with her children atPokrovskoe, at her sister Kitty Levin's. The house on her ownestate was quite in ruins, and Levin and his wife had persuadedher to spend the summer with them. Stepan Arkadyevitch greatlyapproved of the arrangement. He said he was very sorry hisofficial duties prevented him from spending the summer in thecountry with his family, which would have been the greatesthappiness for him; and remaining in Moscow, he came down to thecountry from time to time for a day or two. Besides theOblonskys, with all their children and their governess, the oldprincess too came to stay that summer with the Levins, as sheconsidered it her duty to watch over her inexperienced daughterin her INTERESTING CONDITION. Moreover, Varenka, Kitty's friendabroad, kept her promise to come to Kitty when she was married,and stayed with her friend. All of these were friends orrelations of Levin's wife. And though he liked them all, herather regretted his own Levin world and ways, which wassmothered by this influx of the "Shtcherbatsky element," as hecalled it to himself. Of his own relations there stayed with himonly Sergey Ivanovitch, but he too was a man of the Koznishev andnot the Levin stamp, so that the Levin spirit was utterlyobliterated.

In the Levins' house, so long deserted, there were now so manypeople that almost all the rooms were occupied, and almost everyday it happened that the old princess, sitting down to table,counted them all over, and put the thirteenth grandson orgranddaughter at a separate table. And Kitty, with her carefulhousekeeping, had no little trouble to get all the chickens,turkeys, and geese, of which so many were needed to satisfy thesummer appetites of the visitors and children.

The whole family were sitting at dinner. Dolly's children, withtheir governess and Varenka, were making plans for going to lookfor mushrooms. Sergey Ivanovitch, who was looked up to by allthe party for his intellect and learning, with a respect thatalmost amounted to awe, surprised everyone by joining in theconversation about mushrooms.

"Take me with you. I am very fond of picking mushrooms," hesaid, looking at Varenka; "I think it's a very nice occupation."

"Oh, we shall be delighted," answered Varenka, coloring a little.Kitty exchanged meaningful glances with Dolly. The proposal ofthe learned and intellectual Sergey Ivanovitch to go looking formushrooms with Varenka confirmed certain theories of Kitty's withwhich her mind had been very busy of late. She made haste toaddress some remark to her mother, so that her look should not benoticed. After dinner Sergey Ivanovitch sat with his cup ofcoffee at the drawing-room window, and while he took part in aconversation he had begun with his brother, he watched the doorthrough which the children would start on the mushroom-pickingexpedition. Levin was sitting in the window near his brother.

Kitty stood beside her husband, evidently awaiting the end of aconversation that had no interest for her, in order to tell himsomething.

"You have changed in many respects since your marriage, and forthe better," said Sergey Ivanovitch, smiling to Kitty, andobviously little interested in the conversation, "but you haveremained true to your passion for defending the most paradoxicaltheories."

"Katya, it's not good for you to stand," her husband said to her,putting a chair for her and looking significantly at her.

"Oh, and there's no time either," added Sergey Ivanovitch, seeingthe children running out.

At the head of them all Tanya galloped sideways, in her tightly-drawn stockings, and waving a basket and Sergey Ivanovitch's hat,she ran straight up to him.

Boldly running up to Sergey Ivanovitch with shining eyes, so likeher father's fine eyes, she handed him his hat and made as thoughshe would put it on for him, softening her freedom by a shy andfriendly smile.

"Varenka's waiting," she said, carefully putting his hat on,seeing from Sergey Ivanovitch's smile that she might do so.

Varenka was standing at the door, dressed in a yellow print gown,with a white kerchief on her head.

"I'm coming, I'm coming, Varvara Andreevna," said SergeyIvanovitch, finishing his cup of coffee, and putting into theirseparate pockets his handkerchief and cigar-case.

"And how sweet my Varenka is! eh?" said Kitty to her husband, assoon as Sergey Ivanovitch rose. She spoke so that SergeyIvanovitch could hear, and it was clear that she meant him to doso. "And how good-looking she is--such a refined beauty!Varenka!" Kitty shouted. "Shall you be in the mill copse? We'llcome out to you."

Varenka, hearing Kitty's voice and her mother's reprimand, wentwith light, rapid steps up to Kitty. The rapidity of hermovement, her flushed and eager face, everything betrayed thatsomething out of the common was going on in her. Kitty knew whatthis was, and had been watching her intently. She called Varenkaat that moment merely in order mentally to give her a blessingfor the important event which, as Kitty fancied, was bound tocome to pass that day after dinner in the wood.

"Varenka, I should be very happy if a certain something were tohappen," she whispered as she kissed her.

"And are you coming with us?" Varenka said to Levin in confusion,pretending not to have heard what had been said.

"I am coming, but only as far as the threshing-floor, and there Ishall stop."

"Why, what do you want there?" said Kitty.

"I must go to have a look at the new wagons, and to check theinvoice," said Levin; "and where will you be?"

"On the terrace."

Chapter 2

On the terrace were assembled all the ladies of the party. Theyalways liked sitting there after dinner, and that day they hadwork to do there too. Besides the sewing and knitting ofbaby clothes, with which all of them were busy, that afternoonjam was being made on the terrace by a method new to AgafeaMihalovna, without the addition of water. Kitty had introducedthis new method, which had been in use in her home. AgafeaMihalovna, to whom the task of jam-making had always beenintrusted, considering that what had been done in the Levinhousehold could not be amiss, had nevertheless put water with thestrawberries, maintaining that the jam could not be made withoutit. She had been caught in the act, and was now making jambefore everyone, and it was to be proved to her conclusively thatjam could be very well made without water.

Agafea Mihalovna, her face heated and angry, her hair untidy, andher thin arms bare to the elbows, was turning the preserving-panover the charcoal stove, looking darkly at the raspberries anddevoutly hoping they would stick and not cook properly. Theprincess, conscious that Agafea Mihalovna's wrath must be chieflydirected against her, as the person responsible for the raspberryjam-making, tried to appear to be absorbed in other things andnot interested in the jam, talked of other matters, but caststealthy glances in the direction of the stove.

"I always buy my maids' dresses myself, of some cheap material,"the princess said, continuing the previous conversation. "Isn'tit time to skim it, my dear?" she added, addressing AgafeaMihalovna. "There's not the slightest need for you to do it, andit's hot for you," she said, stopping Kitty.

"I'll do it," said Dolly, and getting up, she carefully passedthe spoon over the frothing sugar, and from time to time shookoff the clinging jam from the spoon by knocking it on a platethat was covered with yellow-red scum and blood-colored syrup."How they'll enjoy this at tea-time!" she thought of herchildren, remembering how she herself as a child had wondered howit was the grown-up people did not eat what was best of all--thescum of the jam.

"Stiva says it's much better to give money." Dolly took upmeanwhile the weighty subject under discussion, what presentsshould be made to servants. "But..."

"Money's out of the question!" the princess and Kitty exclaimedwith one voice. "They appreciate a present..."

"Well, last year, for instance, I bought our Matrona Semyenovna,not a poplin, but something of that sort," said the princess.

"I remember she was wearing it on your nameday."

"A charming pattern--so simple and refined,--I should have likedit myself, if she hadn't had it. Something like Varenka's. Sopretty and inexpensive."

"Well, now I think it's done," said Dolly, dropping the syrupfrom the spoon.

"When it sets as it drops, it's ready. Cook it a little longer,Agafea Mihalovna."

"The flies!" said Agafea Mihalovna angrily. "It'll be just thesame," she added.

"Ah! how sweet it is! don't frighten it!" Kitty said suddenly,looking at a sparrow that had settled on the step and was peckingat the center of a raspberry.

"Yes, but you keep a little further from the stove," said hermother.

"A propos de Varenka," said Kitty, speaking in French, as theyhad been doing all the while, so that Agafea Mihalovna should notunderstand them, "you know, mamma, I somehow expect things to besettled today. You know what I mean. How splendid it would be!"

"But what a famous matchmaker she is!" said Dolly. "Howcarefully and cleverly she throws them together!..."

"No; tell me, mamma, what do you think?"

"Why, what is one to think? He" (HE meant Sergey Ivanovitch)"might at any time have been a match for anyone in Russia; now,of course, he's not quite a young man, still I know ever so manygirls would be glad to marry him even now.... She's a very nicegirl, but he might..."

"Oh, no, mamma, do understand why, for him and for her too,nothing better could be imagined. In the first place, she'scharming!" said Kitty, crooking one of her fingers.

"He thinks her very attractive, that's certain," assented Dolly.

"Then he occupies such a position in society that he has no needto look for either fortune or position in his wife. All he needsis a good, sweet wife--a restful one."

"Well, with her he would certainly be restful," Dolly assented.

"Thirdly, that she should love him. And so it is...that is,it would be so splendid!...I look forward to seeing themcoming out of the forest--and everything settled. I shall see atonce by their eyes. I should be so delighted! What do youthink, Dolly?"

"But don't excite yourself. It's not at all the thing for you tobe excited," said her mother.

"Oh, I'm not excited, mamma. I fancy he will make her an offertoday."

"Ah, that's so strange, how and when a man makes an offer!...There is a sort of barrier, and all at once it's broken down,"said Dolly, smiling pensively and recalling her past with StepanArkadyevitch.

"Mamma, how did papa make you an offer?" Kitty asked suddenly.

"There was nothing out of the way, it was very simple," answeredthe princess, but her face beamed all over at the recollection.

"Oh, but how was it? You loved him, anyway, before you wereallowed to speak?"

Kitty felt a peculiar pleasure in being able now to talk to hermother on equal terms about those questions of such paramountinterest in a woman's life.

"Of course I did; he had come to stay with us in the country."

"But how was it settled between you, mamma?"

"You imagine, I dare say, that you invented something quite new?It's always just the same: it was settled by the eyes, bysmiles..."

"How nicely you said that, mamma! It's just by the eyes, bysmiles that it's done," Dolly assented.

"But what words did he say?"

"What did Kostya say to you?"

"He wrote it in chalk. It was wonderful.... How long ago itseems!" she said.

And the three women all fell to musing on the same thing. Kittywas the first to break the silence. She remembered all that lastwinter before her marriage, and her passion for Vronsky.

"There's one thing ...that old love affair of Varenka's," shesaid, a natural chain of ideas bringing her to this point. "Ishould have liked to say something to Sergey Ivanovitch, toprepare him. They're all--all men, I mean," she added, "awfullyjealous over our past."

"Not all," said Dolly. "You judge by your own husband. It makeshim miserable even now to remember Vronsky. Eh? that's true,isn't it?"

"Yes," Kitty answered, a pensive smile in her eyes.

"But I really don't know," the mother put in in defense of hermotherly care of her daughter, "what there was in your past thatcould worry him? That Vronsky paid you attentions--that happensto every girl."

"Oh, yes, but we didn't mean that," Kitty said, flushing alittle.

"No, let me speak," her mother went on, "why, you yourself wouldnot let me have a talk to Vronsky. Don't you remember?"

"Oh, mamma!" said Kitty, with an expression of suffering.

"There's no keeping you young people in check nowadays.... Yourfriendship could not have gone beyond what was suitable. Ishould myself have called upon him to explain himself. But, mydarling, it's not right for you to be agitated. Please rememberthat, and calm yourself."

"I'm perfectly calm, maman."

"How happy it was for Kitty that Anna came then," said Dolly,"and how unhappy for her. It turned out quite the opposite," shesaid, struck by her own ideas. "Then Anna was so happy, andKitty thought herself unhappy. Now it is just the opposite. Ioften think of her."

"A nice person to think about! Horrid, repulsive woman--noheart," said her mother, who could not forget that Kitty hadmarried not Vronsky, but Levin.

"What do you want to talk of it for?" Kitty said with annoyance."I never think about it, and I don't want to think of it....And I don't want to think of it," she said, catching the sound ofher husband's well-known step on the steps of the terrace.

"What's that you don't want to think about?" inquired Levin,coming onto the terrace.

But no one answered him, and he did not repeat the question.

"I'm sorry I've broken in on your feminine parliament," he said,looking round on every one discontentedly, and perceiving thatthey had been talking of something which they would not talkabout before him.

For a second he felt that he was sharing the feeling of AgafeaMihalovna, vexation at their making jam without water, andaltogether at the outside Shtcherbatsky element. He smiled,however, and went up to Kitty.

"Well, how are you?" he asked her, looking at her with theexpression with which everyone looked at her now.

"Oh, very well," said Kitty, smiling, "and how have things gonewith you?"

"The wagons held three times as much as the old carts did. Well,are we going for the children? I've ordered the horses to be putin."

"What! you want to take Kitty in the wagonette?" her mother saidreproachfully.

"Yes, at a walking pace, princess."

Levin never called the princess "maman" as men often do calltheir mothers-in-law, and the princess disliked his not doing so.But though he liked and respected the princess, Levin could notcall her so without a sense of profaning his feeling for his deadmother.

"Come with us, maman," said Kitty.

"I don't like to see such imprudence."

"Well, I'll walk then, I'm so well." Kitty got up and went to herhusband and took his hand.

"You may be well, but everything in moderation," said theprincess.

"Well, Agafea Mihalovna, is the jam done?" said Levin, smiling toAgafea Mihalovna, and trying to cheer her up. "Is it all rightin the new way?"

"I suppose it's all right. For our notions it's boiled toolong."

"It'll be all the better, Agafea Mihalovna, it won't mildew, eventhough our ice has begun to thaw already, so that we've no coolcellar to store it," said Kitty, at once divining her husband'smotive, and addressing the old housekeeper with the same feeling;"but your pickle's so good, that mamma says she never tasted anylike it," she added, smiling, and putting her kerchief straight.

Agafea Mihalovna looked angrily at Kitty.

"You needn't try to console me, mistress. I need only to look atyou with him, and I feel happy," she said, and something in therough familiarity of that with him touched Kitty.

"Come along with us to look for mushrooms, you will show us thenest places." Agafea Mihalovna smiled and shook her head, asthough to say: "I should like to be angry with you too, but Ican't."

"Do it, please, by my receipt," said the princess; "put somepaper over the jam, and moisten it with a little rum, and withouteven ice, it will never go mildewy."

Chapter 3

Kitty was particularly glad of a chance of being alone with herhusband, for she had noticed the shade of mortification thathad passed over his face--always so quick to reflect everyfeeling--at the moment when he had come onto the terrace andasked what they were talking of, and had got no answer.

When they had set off on foot ahead of the others, and had comeout of sight of the house onto the beaten dusty road, marked withrusty wheels and sprinkled with grains of corn, she clung fasterto his arm and pressed it closer to her. He had quite forgottenthe momentary unpleasant impression, and alone with her he felt,now that the thought of her approaching motherhood was never fora moment absent from his mind, a new and delicious bliss, quitepure from all alloy of sense, in the being near to the woman heloved. There was no need of speech, yet he longed to hear thesound of her voice, which like her eyes had changed since she hadbeen with child. In her voice, as in her eyes, there was thatsoftness and gravity which is found in people continuallyconcentrated on some cherished pursuit.

"So you're not tired? Lean more on me," said he.

"No, I'm so glad of a chance of being alone with you, and I mustown, though I'm happy with them, I do regret our winter eveningsalone."

"That was good, but this is even better. Both are better," hesaid, squeezing her hand.

"Do you know what we were talking about when you came in?"

"About jam?"

"Oh, yes, about jam too; but afterwards, about how men makeoffers."

"Ah!" said Levin, listening more to the sound of her voice thanto the words she was saying, and all the while paying attentionto the road, which passed now through the forest, and avoidingplaces where she might make a false step.

"And about Sergey Ivanovitch and Varenka. You've noticed?...I'm very anxious for it," she went on. "What do you think aboutit?" And she peeped into his face.

"I don't know what to think," Levin answered, smiling. "Sergeyseems very strange to me in that way. I told you, you know..."

"Yes, that he was in love with that girl who died...."

"That was when I was a child; I know about it from hearsay andtradition. I remember him then. He was wonderfully sweet. ButI've watched him since with women; he is friendly, some of themhe likes, but one feels that to him they're simply people, notwomen."

"Yes, but now with Varenka...I fancy there's something..."

"Perhaps there is.... But one has to know him.... He's apeculiar, wonderful person. He lives a spiritual life only.He's too pure, too exalted a nature."

"Why? Would this lower him, then?"

"No, but he's so used to a spiritual life that he can't reconcilehimself with actual fact, and Varenka is after all fact."

Levin had grown used by now to uttering his thought boldly,without taking the trouble of clothing it in exact language. Heknew that his wife, in such moments of loving tenderness as now,would understand what he meant to say from a hint, and she didunderstand him.

"Yes, but there's not so much of that actual fact about her asabout me. I can see that he would never have cared for me. Sheis altogether spiritual."

"Oh, no, he is so fond of you, and I am always so glad when mypeople like you...."

"Yes, he's very nice to me; but..."

"It's not as it was with poor Nikolay...you really cared foreach other," Levin finished. "Why not speak of him?" he added."I sometimes blame myself for not; it ends in one's forgetting.Ah, how terrible and dear he was!... Yes, what were we talkingabout?" Levin said, after a pause.

"You think he can't fall in love," said Kitty, translating intoher own language.

"It's not so much that he can't fall in love," Levin said,smiling, "but he has not the weakness necessary.... I've alwaysenvied him, and even now, when I'm so happy, I still envy him."

"You envy him for not being able to fall in love?"

"I envy him for being better than I," said Levin. "He does notlive for himself. His whole life is subordinated to his duty.And that's why he can be calm and contented."

"And you?" Kitty asked, with an ironical and loving smile.

She could never have explained the chain of thought that made hersmile; but the last link in it was that her husband, in exaltinghis brother and abasing himself, was not quite sincere. Kittyknew that this insincerity came from his love for his brother,from his sense of shame at being too happy, and above all fromhis unflagging craving to be better--she loved it in him, and soshe smiled.

"And you? What are you dissatisfied with?" she asked, with thesame smile.

Her disbelief in his self-dissatisfaction delighted him, andunconsciously he tried to draw her into giving utterance to thegrounds of her disbelief.

"I am happy, but dissatisfied with myself..." he said.

"Why, how can you be dissatisfied with yourself if you arehappy?"

"Well, how shall I say?... In my heart I really care for nothingwhatever but that you should not stumble--see? Oh, but reallyyou mustn't skip about like that!" he cried, breaking off toscold her for too agile a movement in stepping over a branch thatlay in the path. "But when I think about myself, and comparemyself with others, especially with my brother, I feel I'm a poorcreature."

"But in what way?" Kitty pursued with the same smile. "Don't youtoo work for others? What about your co-operative settlement,and your work on the estate, and your book?..."

"Oh, but I feel, and particularly just now--it's your fault," hesaid, pressing her hand--"that all that doesn't count. I do itin a way halfheartedly. If I could care for all that as I carefor you!... Instead of that, I do it in these days like a taskthat is set me."

"Well, what would you say about papa?" asked Kitty. "Is he apoor creature then, as he does nothing for the public good?"

"He?--no! But then one must have the simplicity, thestraightforwardness, the goodness of your father: and I haven'tgot that. I do nothing, and I fret about it. It's all yourdoing. Before there was you--and THIS too," he added with aglance towards her waist that she understood--"I put all myenergies into work; now I can't, and I'm ashamed; I do it just asthough it were a task set me, I'm pretending...."

"Well, but would you like to change this minute with SergeyIvanovitch?" said Kitty. "Would you like to do this work for thegeneral good, and to love the task set you, as he does, andnothing else?"

"Of course not," said Levin. "But I'm so happy that I don'tunderstand anything. So you think he'll make her an offertoday?" he added after a brief silence.

"I think so, and I don't think so. Only, I'm awfully anxious forit. Here, wait a minute." she stooped down and picked a wildcamomile at the edge of the path. "Come, count: he does propose,he doesn't," she said, giving him the flower.

"He does, he doesn't," said Levin, tearing off the white petals.

"No, no!" Kitty, snatching at his hand, stopped him. She hadbeen watching his fingers with interest. "You picked off two."

"Oh, but see, this little one shan't count to make up," saidLevin, tearing off a little half-grown petal. "Here's thewagonette overtaking us."

"Aren't you tired, Kitty?" called the princess.

"Not in the least."

"If you are you can get in, as the horses are quiet and walking."

But it was not worth while to get in, they were quite near theplace, and all walked on together.

Chapter 4

Varenka, with her white kerchief on her black hair, surroundedby the children, gaily and good-humoredly looking after them, andat the same time visibly excited at the possibility of receivinga declaration from the man she cared for, was very attractive.Sergey Ivanovitch walked beside her, and never left off admiringher. Looking at her, he recalled all the delightful things hehad heard from her lips, all the good he knew about her, andbecame more and more conscious that the feeling he had for herwas something special that he had felt long, long ago, and onlyonce, in his early youth. The feeling of happiness in being nearher continually grew, and at last reached such a point that, ashe put a huge, slender-stalked agaric fungus in her basket, helooked straight into her face, and noticing the flush of glad andalarmed excitement that overspread her face, he was confusedhimself, and smiled to her in silence a smile that said too much.

"If so," he said to himself, "I ought to think it over and makeup my mind, and not give way like a boy to the impulse of amoment."

"I'm going to pick by myself apart from all the rest, or else myefforts will make no show," he said, and he left the edge of theforest where they were walking on low silky grass between oldbirch trees standing far apart, and went more into the heart ofthe wood, where between the white birch trunks there were graytrunks of aspen and dark bushes of hazel. Walking some fortypaces away, Sergey Ivanovitch, knowing he was out of sight, stoodstill behind a bushy spindle-tree in full flower with its rosyred catkins. It was perfectly still all round him. Onlyoverhead in the birches under which he stood, the flies, like aswarm of bees, buzzed unceasingly, and from time to time thechildren's voices were floated across to him. All at once heheard, not far from the edge of the wood, the sound of Varenka'scontralto voice, calling Grisha, and a smile of delight passedover Sergey Ivanovitch's face. Conscious of this smile, he shookhis head disapprovingly at his own condition, and taking out acigar, he began lighting it. For a long while he could not get amatch to light against the trunk of a birch tree. The softscales of the white bark rubbed off the phosphorus, and the lightwent out. At last one of the matches burned, and the fragrantcigar smoke, hovering uncertainly in flat, wide coils, stretchedaway forwards and upwards over a bush under the overhangingbranches of a birch tree. Watching the streak of smoke, SergeyIvanovitch walked gently on, deliberating on his position.

"Why not?" he thought. "If it were only a passing fancy or apassion, if it were only this attraction--this mutual attraction(I can call it a MUTUAL attraction), but if I felt that it was incontradiction with the whole bent of my life--if I felt that ingiving way to this attraction I should be false to my vocationand my duty...but it's not so. The only thing I can sayagainst it is that, when I lost Marie, I said to myself that Iwould remain faithful to her memory. That's the only thing I cansay against my feeling.... That's a great thing," SergeyIvanovitch said to himself, feeling at the same time that thisconsideration had not the slightest importance for himpersonally, but would only perhaps detract from his romanticcharacter in the eyes of others. "But apart from that, howevermuch I searched, I should never find anything to say against myfeeling. If I were choosing by considerations of suitabilityalone, I could not have found anything better."

However many women and girls he thought of whom he knew, he couldnot think of a girl who united to such a degree all, positivelyall, the qualities he would wish to see in his wife. She had allthe charm and freshness of youth, but she was not a child; and ifshe loved him, she loved him consciously as a woman ought tolove; that was one thing. Another point: she was not only farfrom being worldly, but had an unmistakable distaste for worldlysociety, and at the same time she knew the world, and had all theways of a woman of the best society, which were absolutelyessential to Sergey Ivanovitch's conception of the woman who wasto share his life. Thirdly: she was religious, and not like achild, unconsciously religious and good, as Kitty, for example,was, but her life was founded on religious principles. Even intrifling matters, Sergey Ivanovitch found in her all that hewanted in his wife: she was poor and alone in the world, so shewould not bring with her a mass of relations and their influenceinto her husband's house, as he saw now in Kitty's case. Shewould owe everything to her husband, which was what he had alwaysdesired too for his future family life. And this girl, whounited all these qualities, loved him. He was a modest man, buthe could not help seeing it. And he loved her. There was oneconsideration against it--his age. But he came of a long-livedfamily, he had not a single gray hair, no one would have takenhim for forty, and he remembered Varenka's saying that it wasonly in Russia that men of fifty thought themselves old, and thatin France a man of fifty considers himself dans la force del'age, while a man of forty is un jeune homme. But what did themere reckoning of years matter when he felt as young in heart ashe had been twenty years ago? Was it not youth to feel as hefelt now, when coming from the other side to the edge of the woodhe saw in the glowing light of the slanting sunbeams the graciousfigure of Varenka in her yellow gown with her basket, walkinglightly by the trunk of an old birch tree, and when thisimpression of the sight of Varenka blended so harmoniously withthe beauty of the view, of the yellow oatfield lying bathed inthe slanting sunshine, and beyond it the distant ancient forestflecked with yellow and melting into the blue of the distance?His heart throbbed joyously. A softened feeling came over him.He felt that he had made up his mind. Varenka, who had justcrouched down to pick a mushroom, rose with a supple movement andlooked round. Flinging away the cigar, Sergey Ivanovitchadvanced with resolute steps towards her.

Chapter 5

"Varvara Andreevna, when I was very young, I set before myselfthe ideal of the women I loved and should be happy to call mywife. I have lived through a long life, and now for the firsttime I have met what I sought--in you. I love you, and offer youmy hand."

Sergey Ivanovitch was saying this to himself while he was tenpaces from Varvara. Kneeling down, with her hands over themushrooms to guard them from Grisha, she was calling littleMasha.

"Come here, little ones! There are so many!" she was saying inher sweet, deep voice.

Seeing Sergey Ivanovitch approaching, she did not get up and didnot change her position, but everything told him that she felthis presence and was glad of it.

"Well, did you find some?" she asked from under the whitekerchief, turning her handsome, gently smiling face to him.

"Not one," said Sergey Ivanovitch. "Did you?"

She did not answer, busy with the children who thronged abouther.

"That one too, near the twig," she pointed out to little Masha alittle fungus, split in half across its rosy cap by the dry grassfrom under which it thrust itself. Varenka got up while Mashapicked the fungus, breaking it into two white halves. "Thisbrings back my childhood," she added, moving apart from thechildren beside Sergey Ivanovitch.

They walked on for some steps in silence. Varenka saw that hewanted to speak; she guessed of what, and felt faint with joy andpanic. They had walked so far away that no one could hear themnow, but still he did not begin to speak. It would have beenbetter for Varenka to be silent. After a silence it would havebeen easier for them to say what they wanted to say than aftertalking about mushrooms. But against her own will, as it wereaccidentally, Varenka said:

"So you found nothing? In the middle of the wood there arealways fewer, though." Sergey Ivanovitch sighed and made noanswer. He was annoyed that she had spoken about the mushrooms.He wanted to bring her back to the first words she had utteredabout her childhood; but after a pause of some length, as thoughagainst his own will, he made an observation in response to herlast words.

"I have heard that the white edible funguses are foundprincipally at the edge of the wood, though I can't tell themapart."

Some minutes more passed, they moved still further away from thechildren, and were quite alone. Varenka's heart throbbed so thatshe heard it beating, and felt that she was turning red and paleand red again.

To be the wife of a man like Koznishev, after her position withMadame Stahl, was to her imagination the height of happiness.Besides, she was almost certain that she was in love with him.And this moment it would have to be decided. She feltfrightened. She dreaded both his speaking and his not speaking.

Now or never it must be said--that Sergey Ivanovitch felt too.Everything in the expression, the flushed cheeks and the downcasteyes of Varenka betrayed a painful suspense. Sergey Ivanovitchsaw it and felt sorry for her. He felt even that to say nothingnow would be a slight to her. Rapidly in his own mind he ranover all the arguments in support of his decision. He even saidover to himself the words in which he meant to put his offer, butinstead of those words, some utterly unexpected reflection thatoccurred to him made him ask:

"What is the difference between the 'birch' mushroom and the'white' mushroom?"